Somali Piracy: JMSDF Ships Sazanami, Samidare on Anti Piracy Mission

by OldSailor on March 15, 2009

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Two Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) destroyers have left from Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture on March 14 to join anti piracy mission off Somalia. The decision to send the ships on anti piracy mission was taken in end January 2009. The reason is, out of approximate 18,000 merchant ships navigating off the coast of Somalia in a year, more than 2,000 ships are from Japan or related to Japan.

as a maritime police action, the destroyers will escort only vessels linked to Japan—Japanese-registered ships, foreign ships with Japanese nationals or cargo on board, and other ships operated by Japanese shipping firms.

if the anti-piracy bill submitted to parliament on March 13 is passed, the warships would be able to protect any ship, including foreign vessels without Japanese connections.

DD Sazanami and DD Samidare of MSDF on anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden will start escorting ships in the Gulf of Aden from March 30. The number of ships to be escorted will be 5 including freighters for automobiles. Read more from Japan Ministry of Defense.